Tractor pulling a family affair as 4 Martins compete at high level

The Martin family can't even count the number of tractor pulls it has participated in over the years, and it shows.

Inside the family's garage, a wall is lined with what seems like at least 100 trophies. But they have lost count of those as well.

The home of their four pro-stock tractors -- That Darn Deere, Dairy Deere, John Deere Green and Think Green -- is also the home of their Chambersburg dairy farm. They have owned the farm since 1974. They also own eight other farms from Greencastle to Chambersburg, and three in Shippensburg.

Though Robert Martin Sr., his two sons, Josh and Bobby, and even his wife, Patsy, enjoy the competition of tractor pulls and the traveling involved, it was not always that way.

Martin said that before becoming interested in the hobby about 13 years ago, he was constantly working on the farm, rarely taking a break.

Martin and his sons dabbled in some farm tractor pulls for fun before they bought their first professional tractor for competitions. Though their first tractor has since been sold, they have not been able give up their passion. Each of their four pro-stock tractors weighs in at 10,000 pounds, with more than 2,000 horsepower.

Though the exteriors of the tractors display the classic John Deere logo, just the hood cover and fenders are genuine John Deere. According to Martin, everything else is custom made and the engine is built of high performance parts.

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"(Driving the pro-stock) is kind of like driving a regular car versus driving a race car," Josh said.

The whole family, including Patsy, has driven the tractors in competition.

"(Driving) is a lot faster than you think," Patsy said. She has taken home a trophy or two herself.

Given that the family owns four of these power machines, they often take all of them to a competition and enter all four under their pull class. There are usually three different classes other than theirs: two-wheel drive, four-wheel drive and modifieds.

Over the past year, the family has decided to stay in competitions on the East Coast rather than travel to states such as Wisconsin and Missouri to compete. Josh's girlfriend, Brandi, was diagnosed with breast cancer about a year ago and the Martins wanted her to be able to attend the pulls.

"I wanted to see everything," Brandi said. Not wanting to miss out on any competitions, she vowed to attend them all despite her treatment program.

Most recently, the family participated in the Lucas Oil Pro Pulling League, a series of 20 to 25 competitions over several months from April to September. Each tractor gets just one pull and is given points based on how far the tractor travels while pulling a sled with as much as 30,000 pounds on it.

"It's like 13 seconds," Martin said. "Then it's all over."

The pull becomes more difficult after the first few seconds because the weight shifts to the front of the sled once the tractor picks up speed.

One of their advantages is being able to complete a pull and then give each other advice for their next tractor. Often, they can move weights around on the tractors that can help them to go farther in the pull.

Last month, the Martin family took home first, second, third and fourth places, meaning each of the four tractors won one of these awards. According to Martin, it was the first time in the competition that tractors owned by the same family won all of the top four spots. He also believes that it has never been done before at any other tractor pull competition.

Right now, one of the tractors is in pieces spread across the garage floor. The Martins are working to fix it. Despite the thousands of pieces and the monstrous size of the tractor, they say they can put it back together in about two days if they really needed to.

Martin and his sons were not always efficient at taking these machines apart to clean them or do a repair, but over the past decade, they have become pros.

"(Tractor pulls) really changed our lives," Martin said. As someone who once worked all day, every day, Martin is glad he has developed this hobby with his family so that they can get away every now and then to do what they love doing together.